CHAPTER ONE
The radio alarm came on just after seven, waking Georgina with "All You Need is Love". She was alone in her bed.
She sat up, flipped back the quilt and swung her feet to the floor. The front of her nightdress was a soppy face of a teddy bear. The colours were faded. She smoothed the thin cotton with both hands while she breathed in, pulling the picture tight across her breasts. She watched the smile on the teddy bear's face broaden.
"At least you can still smile," she said.
She reached for the shapeless dressing gown on the bottom of the bed and pulled it on, then plucked absently at the loose threads on the fraying cuff. She heaved a sigh, then shuffled to the kitchenette. Her drooping shoulders showed how she felt about life in general and herself in particular.
She put enough water in the kettle for two coffees. As she reached for the cereal packet from the cupboard her bare foot found a sticky damp patch on the kitchen floor. A glance at the murky stain distracted her from the morning ritual. She pushed the cereal back in the cupboard. She had no appetite. She made a mug of instant coffee and left the cramped kitchenette for the living room.
The legs of the coffee table were slewed at a strange angle. The photo cube of six happy frozen moments was crushed on the floor. She sat on the settee and stared at the distorted photographs in cracked pieces of clear plastic, then carefully balanced her mug on the sloping table and picked up the damaged mementos of her past.
Her face beaming happiness. Her wedding dress. Wayne's sloppy grin.
She extracted the picture from the damaged cube and ritualistically tore it in half. She held the two pieces at arms length and let them drop. The message of her sundered marriage fluttered to the floor.
The next picture. Newly weds in the dining room of their honeymoon hotel. Wayne's favourite picture. His broad grin and her startled look.
"Smile for the camera," he said.
She still remembered her feelings of confusion when he stroked her thigh beneath the folds of the table cloth. She giggled when he whispered, "I want to touch my loving wife, open your legs."
She complied.
"Don't move or he'll know what we're doing," Wayne whispered as the photographer approached.
"Smile for the camera," he said, as his finger pushed past the edge of her panties.
"Now that's one photograph that will really hold a memory."
He kissed her, tongue and finger entering her simultaneously, while the room full of people all around them continued to talk and laugh and eat.
It was shocking, confusing, but exciting. They went to their room soon after and made love.
She tore the photograph carefully, first separating the bodies from each other, then the heads from the bodies. These pieces joined the others on the floor.
The next picture was already damaged. Her father, mother and sister Hariet, all in wedding day finery.
Georgina began to cry. The tears were for her father. She missed him terribly. She'd always been daddy's girl, his princess. Hariet was two years older than Georgina. She was the aggressive one, stroppy when she didn't get her own way. Jealous of the closeness of father and second daughter. Hariet demanded independence early in her teenage years. When she was eighteen she set herself up in her own flat. The more tractable Georgina was still coming home by ten so that daddy wouldn't worry.
She lent back in the settee and closed her eyes, almost unaware of the tears streaking her cheeks. She remembered her childhood. Sunny days. A smiling father, a tired mother, a scowling sister. Ice creams and picnics. But always daddy smiling, calling her his princess, buying her presents.
Daddy had always been so protective. He hadn't minded when she wanted to give up school half way through her A levels. He was pleased that she had broken up with William Bragg.
She remembered the first night she went out with William. Her father had been so angry when she arrived home late.
William Bragg. Her first real boyfriend. He was in upper sixth when she started her A level course. He'd kissed her at the Christmas party, and tried to get her drunk.
She remembered William with fondness, despite the untidy ending of their four month relationship. Despite Margot Goody. She had told Wayne all about William. He insisted on hearing every detail. It excited him. And his excitement excited her.
"Come on, tell me about him. We're engaged now. No secrets. You told me I was the first." Wayne was grinning. "I won't be jealous, but I want to know everything." And she knew from the butterflies of excitement in her belly he intended to find out and that she was looking forward to Wayne forcing her full revelations.
"There's nothing to tell. I went out with William Bragg for a while, that's all." She knew that wouldn't stop him.
"How long?"
"Four months."
"And he didn't make love to you? He must be queer."
"I was only seventeen."
Wayne snuggled up to her on the settee. Her parents were out. The gas fire was the only light in the room.
"Tell me all the dirty details. I want to know everything he did to you and everything you did to him."
"Oh Wayne." Georgina was amused at his jokey insistence and only a little embarrassed. She was beginning to enjoy his racy conversation as much as his wandering hands.
"Tell me how you met." He swung his legs up on the settee and lay with his head in her lap.
"I knew him at school. At the sixth form christmas disco he kept tipping brandy into my coke."
"And?"
"We danced and he told me he fancied me, he said I was the best looking girl in the school." She looked down at him and raised her eyebrows waiting for a comment.
"And?"
She wasn't going to get a compliment.
"We smooched and kissed a bit at the end of the disco. He was nice and in the upper sixth and he had a car, so I let him drive me home."
"And?"
"And daddy was furious because the disco ended at twelve and I didn't get home till one."
"So what were you two up to? Snogging in his daddy's car?"
"Yes." She smiled down at him.
"And did he feel you up like this?" Wayne's hands moved to cover Georgina's breasts. She felt the pleasurable tingle in her nipples that she had come to expect from his exploring fingers.
"No. He tried to, but I wouldn't let him. I was a good girl then." Her smile broadened. She hadn't complained at the liberty he was taking and she wanted him to notice how relaxed she was about the freedom she allowed his hands. She felt her nipples harden as he stroked them through the light fabric of the blouse and bra.
"And then?"
"He was away for christmas so I didn't see him till the new year. He took me to the cinema a few times on friday evenings and we met in town on Saturdays."
"Tell me about the first time you let him have a grope."
"Don't be sordid."
"Tell me."
"We'd been going out for weeks before I let him do what you're doing."
"Was it nice?"
"It was OK."
"Tell me about the first time you let him do this." Wayne's fingers undid the buttons of her blouse and he slipped his hands in to cup her breasts in the light support of her bra.
Georgina smiled down at him and stroked his hair. "You shouldn't be asking me about things like this."
